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Exploring the word

02 Dec 2012 - First Sunday of Advent, Cycle C

Does time mean anything? Think about the difference between Monday and Friday: Apart from the significance we assign them as the traditional beginning and end of the work-week, is there an inherent “Monday-ness” or “Friday-ness” which are unique to those days? Is 2 o’clock really distinguishable from 3 o’clock? Does it matter to your cat whether it’s November or December? Is there such a thing as 2012, and if you stopped looking at a calendar, would you know instinctively that it’s 2013 in only a few weeks? Why do we have a thing we call time at all, and why take such care to measure it out in seconds and centuries and millennia and everything in between? Of course weather is a huge factor in the meaning of time. Because weather changes, the environment changes, and the survival of all life-forms depends on those shifts, subtle or dramatic. Seasons most definitely matter, to farmers and everyone who likes to eat. But Mondays and Fridays, or 9 to 5, only mean what they mean if you have the kind of traditional job that fits inside that industrial box. Fewer of us do every year. In the same way, Sunday is significantly distinct from Saturday only if you’re a churchgoing Christian—or vice versa if you’re Jewish. Day and night have peculiar textures for purely practical reasons: Until the invention of electricity, much activity stopped when the sun went down and darkness reigned. But in today's cities where the night is ablaze with lights, the transition into night can be vague or even irrelevant. Ever spend time in a casino, where there are no windows? Time becomes seamless in such an environment. Time is not simply an external event. The aging of our bodies tells time for us, too. We know our time is not unlimited: 70 years, or 90 for the strong, as Psalm 90 says. And that’s under optimum conditions, which for some of us will not apply. What all of this reminds us is that time is very real in some ways and yet a human construct in others. We ourselves put the “mortal” in mortality. The meaning of time is most apparent in that we don’t have a lot of it. So we assign great significance to birthdays and anniversaries and annual events that record for us the passage of years. That is a bit of cheerleading on our part: "Hooray, we’re all still here!" It’s also a built-in opportunity to reflect: Make a wish for the future and blow out the candles. Consider the past year and leave an empty chair for those who won’t be joining you at the feast this time. Count the blessings and mourn the losses. A new church year begins. What does it mean, and what can it mean to tell our story of faith again? Related scripture links Beatitudes: Matt. 5:3-12; Luke 6:2-26 He who lives by the sword: Matt. 26:52 New heavens, new earth: 2 Pet. 3:13 Catechism links Advent: CCC 522-524 Waiting in joyful hope: CCC 668-672; 1024-1029; 2612

Authors Alice Camille

Psalm 90 meaning of time advent

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Meaningful living is healthy living

11 Aug 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In the long form of the Sunday gospel, Jesus encourages his disciples to get their priorities in order: "Sell your belongings and give alms . . . . For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be." Research suggests that advice is good not only for the soul but also for the body: Those who seek a meaningful life based on service exhibit stronger immune systems than those concerned only with self-centered happiness.Many studies in the past have noted the connection between a happy mind and a healthy body, but a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) challenges this rosy picture. Happiness may not be as good for the body as researchers thought. It might even be bad.The key is understanding the difference between a meaningful life and a happy life. The two are not mutually exclusive, of course, but a January study in the Journal of Positive Psychology looked at a large sample of people over a month-long period and found that happiness is associated with selfish “taking” behavior and that having a sense of meaning in life is associated with selfless “giving” behavior."Happiness without meaning characterizes a relatively shallow, self-absorbed, or even selfish life, in which things go well, needs and desire are easily satisfied, and difficult or taxing entanglements are avoided," the authors of that study wrote. "If anything, pure happiness is linked to not helping others in need.” While being happy is about feeling good, meaning is derived from contributing to the lives of others or to society in a bigger way.The new PNAS study sheds light on the difference between meaning and happiness on the biological level. Researchers examined the self-reported levels of happiness and meaning in 80 research subjects. They found immune systems better equipped to resist infection in those scoring high on meaning when compared to those who scored high for a more self-pleasing approach to happiness.Homily hint: "The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it," wrote psychoanalyst Carl Jung, echoing the wisdom found throughout the biblical testimony to the value of a life focused on service rather than pleasure. Many Americans report lives high in personal satisfaction but low in meaning. What does that tell us about our priorities as a culture? The Good News—give your life away in service and find it—was never needed more. Source: An article by Emily Esfahani Smith for The Atlantic

health happiness immune system meaning journal of positive psychology

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Where is religion going?

Short essays about observed trends in Roman Catholic life - Pastoral trends

Religion’s obituary has been written prematurely for the past two centuries. Religion, defined as a set of beliefs that allows us to make meaning of the world, is not dying, though it doesn’t look like it did in the past. What has happened the past few centuries and especially the past few decades is a process whereby cultural, organizational, and political power has exited the churches. The powerful links that connected people to “pray, pay, and obey” is approaching a vanishing point. This means that the power of churches to define a set of beliefs that allow majorities to make meaning of the world is simply not there. But people continue to make meaning. We humans are meaning-makers! Human beings are simply unable to live without meaning. Religion connects us. Religion springs from such meaning-making. The difference is that more and more meaning is produced by smaller groups and by individuals rather than by large institutions. Today, religious meaning is simply more diverse, more plural than ever. Religion is not ending but transforming, moving from a time of a few major well-defined options to countless options within those options, variations everywhere. This is not a diminishment of religion but only the diminishment of the ability of any one group to control sacred space. This is not freedom from religion but a new freedom we have today for religion. The challenge is that in the old way, the major religious options applied to whole societies and entire groups. Today each person has an opportunity to realize religion and the claims of religion in freedom. Which is not easy to do.

Authors Bryan Froehle

power belief meaning

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Exploring the word

10 Sep 2023 - Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Culture-wide, we have lost the art of dialogue. There’s no such thing as a thoughtful sharing of perspectives for the purpose of advancing understanding. Instead we have so-called “talk” shows: shout-fests and diatribes in which we ridicule opponents and promote our own narrow and blinkered agenda. News reporting has become infected with the “get ’em” mentality. As the media skewers the latest celebrity with addiction issues, politician with poor zipper control, or religious leader operating under the influence of dreadful theology, I feel less disgust for the individual under fire than the reporter and the intended consumer of these news items. The culture of contempt satisfies the triumphalist tendency in us. After watching the nightly news, we feel morally superior to most people on the planet—particularly those who set themselves up as our betters. Isn’t that a great rush? Some years ago a theologian noted that if Jesus were alive today, his enemies wouldn’t bother to crucify him. They’d simply make fun of him in the press. There’s a deep truth to that. The new execution style is character assassination. Once we’ve destroyed a person’s good name, we have effectively eliminated them. But let’s say you couldn’t care less about what happens to fellow human beings who make bad choices and are publicly humiliated in turn. Is there any other reason to be concerned about the culture of contempt? Yes. It’s not simply that we make blood sport of chasing society’s sinners with our cell phone cameras. The acceptability of contempt is making it increasingly hard across the board to sympathize, empathize, or even listen to other people in a civil manner. If a brother sins Instead of earnestly seeking to discover what makes those with whom we disagree tick, we throw them to the lions and enjoy the spectacle. And the occasion of sin grows and spreads to infect our relations across political parties, religious affiliations, ethnicity and race, and, of course most especially, borders. Not learning to talk civilly to one another across our differences means diplomacy has no foothold in the national consciousness. All we can imagine doing in the hour of conflict is to bomb the heck out of the other side. A long time ago, Jesus argued, with good rabbinic tradition behind him, to settle disputes as privately and reasonably as possible. “Talk to your brother,” he advised. What a concept. Talk doesn’t mean rant or disparage or shame or dominate. It means sharing and also listening. But as Jesus knew well, you can’t begin to settle serious conflicts by jumping into a dialogue without special training. Matthew 18 is an extended prep course in how Christians should handle their differences. A brief summary situates today’s passage: Learn humility, love the lost, talk to your brother, and forgive without limits. No talk show in the world would keep its ratings under those conditions! We have to talk It’s not as if we have a choice about handling disagreement and conflict. In a sinful world there’s plenty of it around, and left unaddressed it leads to tension and eventual explosion. But before we say one word to a sister or brother, we have to take lessons in the school of humility—”become like a little child,” as Jesus says. Entry into the Kingdom is dependent on developing this quality, and the only useful dialogue comes from the person who approaches others unarmed and vulnerable, like a child. Next, we must develop the mindset of the shepherd with the 99 contented sheep. We have to believe that regaining the stray is worthwhile and desirable—in other words, we have to be committed to the unity of the flock. If we don’t give a rip about people who disagree with us and if we’d prefer the disgruntled would just get lost, then we can’t have a meaningful dialogue and there’s no point in trying. Third, we come to Jesus’ advice about how to talk to the lost brother or sister: Do it privately and with care. Sometimes that will be enough. If not, try a good old intervention with another friend or two. In circumstances when to harbor the secret wrong would put others at risk, going public may be necessary—but the purpose must remain for the good of the stray sheep and never to serve up a dish of entertainment. Finally, Jesus says, if the person remains obdurate, treat that one like a Gentile or tax collector. And then remind yourself how Jesus treated Gentiles and tax collectors: as people still deserving of healing, access, and hope. It is no wonder Jesus moves directly from this lesson to a teaching on forgiveness and a parable about mercy. Dispensing with offenders is not high on the list of Christian prerogatives. Applying the word Owe nothing but your love Ezekiel says those in the know owe sinners a heads-up on their condition. That is part of the debt of love we owe to our neighbor, but it has to be handled with the comprehensive outline above in mind. We cannot wish evil on a neighbor, as Saint Paul says. If we want to live in a world full of neighbors and not adversaries, we have to learn to talk. Related scripture links Where guilt lies: Lev. 19:17-18 The need for witnesses: Deut. 19:15 Lessons on settling disputes: Matt. 18:1-5 (child), 10-14 (sheep), 15-20 (talk), 21-35 (forgive) Catechism links If another sins: CCC 553; 1088; 1373; 1444; 2472 The debt of love: CCC 1824; 2055; 2196; 2845

Authors Alice Camille

understanding culture of contempt character assassination listening meaningful dialogue

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